The great thing about the Internet is that a whopping 460 some students have joined the Facebook.com group for the Spring 2007 Semester at Sea voyage. That's approximately two-thirds of all of the students that will be on the trip. As far as I can tell, I'm the only faculty member who has joined the group...however, I'm glad I did because I am already learning a lot in the discussion threads on there. Additionally, I am able to get a general idea of what people look like and associating names with faces.
On Facebook, a lot of students have already taken the lead and organized some independent trips. One person spearheads a trip, researches it and then asks who is interested in going. Additionally, some students are forming sub-groups already...there are sub-groups for people who are looking for exercise buddies with similar habits, people who want to organize a Bible study group, people who are interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons, people who are willing to share books for classes...you name it and someone is throwing out an idea to try to "pre-identify" people with similiar interests or habits prior to the voyage. It's a pretty neat way for everyone to get organized and to quell some jitters about what to expect. I've even posted on Facebook to try to find people who want a pack of free playing cards...I am using about 10-12 decks for an activity in the Intercultural Communication class I'll be teaching and since I don't want to bring them home, I'm giving them away so people won't have to pack their own deck of cards.
I've also posted a thread on the MSN message board for the Semester at Sea Spring 2007 voyage stating that I can be the go-to person if anyone is feeling homesick. I know how excruciating it was for me when I first went on my first big trip away from home the summer after my junior year in college in 1996..something I now regard as being one of the best experiences of my life. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of a pilot program to study abroad in Germany for 7 weeks. It was a great opportunity...one that clearly has helped shape me into the person I am today because it gave me confidence to go back and travel on my own, to take on other study abroad trips (notably my summer study in London for 5 weeks in graduate school in 2001) and now I even work 5 hours from where I grew up...something I never thought I would do. Even my participation in this Semester at Sea trip is a direct result of going on the original study abroad trip in Germany. If anyone would have told me I would have done all of that back on the original Germany trip in 1996, I would have never believed it. I was so painfully homesick, I wanted to go home at first...but after about two weeks though, the homesickness abated and I didn't want to leave by the end of the trip.
I know that this Semester at Sea trip is a big deal and worrisome to some students because it is 14 weeks long. To someone who is close to his/her family and a boyfriend/girlfriend and hasn't been away from home much in the past, it is a literal shock to the system to change everything. To some people, it's invigorating...to others it's a source of real biological anxiety and panic. Physiologically, I really do think that change does "trigger" chemical responses in some people's brains...it's why some people experience anxiety and why some people don't. Maybe in a weird way my own past experience in feeling that extreme homesickness will help me to get other people through the feelings of homesickness. A few students have already written to me privately on Facebook to tell me that they know they will need that type of support and will probably come see me to help me talk them through it. I just hope I can be of some help to them and provide them with some coping strategies during their anxiety. I feel like because I know so well what it feels like, maybe I'm a bit more equipped to help people cope now.
